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Monday, January 7, 2013

Transportation The Bikes of Italy

Posted by Charles Mudede on Mon, Jan 7, 2013 at 8:28 AM

The Google translator with some help:

Incredibly, in 2011 the sale of bicycles exceeded that of cars. This has not been the case since the war. Times are definitely changing, the bicycle has set us in motion after years and years of lounging on chairs and office sofas, watching TV... In 2011 there were 1,750,000 against 1,748,143 bikes sold car.

Though the news of this trend is supposed to be uplifting, give us hope, show that humans are finally on the right track, it's depressing to learn that nearly 1.8 million cars were sold in one year in Italy alone. Despite all that we know about the state of the environment, there seems no real end in sight to this century-old car mania.

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I think this says more about how long you own a bicycle before it gets stolen, vs how long you own a car before it gets stolen.

Posted by RonK, Seattle on January 7, 2013 at 12:42 PM

Gas prices would have gone down, but the oil firms used the excuse of crude oil prices going up in other countries while demand dropped in the US to jack up prices here.

Not to worry, once they get us to build the pipelines so they can export Canada's oil out of the US, they can jack the prices up even higher.

Posted by Will in Seattle

on January 7, 2013 at 11:21 AM

charles, let me know if you want to go down to the Lemay car museum in Tacoma. i'd be glad to drive you there, hopefully on a sunny day when there's a crazy Latino car show on the lawn. it might make your head explode.

Posted by Max Solomon on January 7, 2013 at 11:13 AM

Going hundreds of miles in a day, not in weeks. Arriving at work instead of spending your day getting to work. Keeping clean and warm and dry, while not getting tired. Carrying goods, and passengers. Airbags. Four channel speaker systems. No special shoes. Climbing hills without having a hernia.

Maniacal! Insane! What is driving this irrationality?

Posted by Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn

on January 7, 2013 at 11:02 AM

Wait til you hear about China, Charles. 10.8 million cars sold in the first 10 months of 2012 is the latest I can find -- that's better than 13 mil for the year. They'll break that this year. India is almost as high. The worldwide "car mania" is not fading; it's accelerating rapidly.

Posted by Fnarf

on January 7, 2013 at 10:53 AM

Jesus, Charles, how do you manage to fuck up your links again and again and again and again? What part of "test before posting" do you not understand?

Charles, with some help:

http://www.mondoecoblog.com/2012/10/02/v…

You're welcome.

Posted by rob!